"True enough," said Micky, with a short laugh. "I've been an unsatisfactory sort of creature always."
"Just young," said Leo. "Just kicking up your heels. Apprehensive of the bridle, of the saddle, of control. We all feel like that at one time in our lives, but we have to come to it in the end?"
"Yes, I suppose so," said Micky.
"I'm very glad," said Leo, "that you have got this idea for the future. I don't think, you know, that just working as a car salesman and demonstrator is quite good enough for you. It's all right, but it doesn't lead anywhere."
"I like cars," said Micky. "I like getting the best out of them. I can do a line of talk when I have to. Patter, patter, all the smarmy bits, but I don't enjoy the life, blast it. This is a job to do with motor transport, anyway. Controlling the servicing of cars. Quite an important job."
"You know," said Leo, "that at any time you might want to finance yourself, to buy yourself into any business you thought worth while, the money is there, available. You know about the Discretionary Trust. I am quite prepared to authorise any necessary sum provided always that the business details are passed and acceptable. We would get expert opinion on that. But the money is there, ready for you if you want it."
"Thanks, Dad, but I don't want to sponge on you."
"There's no question of sponging, Micky, it's your money. Definitely made over to you in common with the others. All I have is the power of appointment, the when and the how. But it's not my money and I'm not giving it to you. It's yours."
"It's Mother's money really," said Micky.
"The Trust was made several years ago," said Leo.
"I don't want any of it!" said Micky. "I don't want to touch it! I couldn't! As things are, I couldn't."
He flushed suddenly as he met his father's eye. He said uncertainly: "I didn't -1 didn't quite mean to say that."
"Why can't you touch it?" said Leo. "We adopted you. That is, we took full responsibility for you, financial and otherwise. It was a business arrangement that you should be brought up as our son and properly provided for in life."
156
"I want to stand on my own feet," Micky repeated.
"Yes. I see you do... Very well, then, Micky, but if you change your mind, remember the money is there, waiting."
"Thanks, Dad. It's good of you to understand. Or at least, not to understand, to let me have my way. I wish I could explain better. You see, I don't want to profit by -1 can't profit by - oh, dammit all, it's all too difficult to talk about."
There was a knock on the door which was almost more a bump.
"That's Philip, I expect," said Leo Argyle. "Will you open the door for him, Micky."
Micky went across to open the door, and Philip, working his invalid chair, propelled himself into the room.
He greeted them both with a cheerful grin.
"Are you very busy, sir?" he asked Leo. "If so, say so. I'll keep quiet and not interruptyou and just browse along the bookshelves."
"No," said Leo, "I have nothing to do this morning." "Gwenda not here?" asked Philip.
"She rang up to say she had a headache and couldn't come today," said Leo. His voice was expressionless.
"I see," said Philip.
Micky said: "Well, I shall go and dig out Tina. Make her go for a walk. That girl hates fresh air."
He left the room, walking with a light, springy step.
"Am I wrong," asked Philip, "or is there a change in Micky lately? Not scowling at the world as much as usual, is he?"
"He's growing up," said Leo. "It's taken rather a long time for him to do so."
"Well, he's chosen a curious time to cheer up," said Philip. "Yesterday's session
with the police wasn't exactly encouraging, did you think so?"
Leo said quietly: "It's painful, of course, to have the whole case re-opened."
"A chap like Micky now," said Philip, working his way along the book-shelves, pulling out a volume or two in a desultory manner, "would you say he had much of a conscience?"
"That's an odd question, Philip."
"No, not really. I was just wondering about him. It's like being tone deaf. Some people can't really feel any pangs of guilt or remorse, or even regret for their actions. Jacko didn't."
"No," said Leo, "Jacko certainly didn't."
"And I wondered about Micky," said Philip. He paused, and then went on in a detached voice. "Do you mind if I ask you a question, sir? How much really do you know about the background of all this adopted family of yours?"
"Why do you want to know, Philip?"
"Just curiosity, I suppose. One always wonders, you know, how much there is in heredity."
Leo did not answer. Philip observed him with bright-eyed interest. "Perhaps," he said, "I'm bothering you asking these questions."
"Well," said Leo, rising, "after all, why shouldn't you ask them? You're one of the family. They are at the moment, one can't disguise it, very pertinent questions to ask. But our family, as you put it, were not adopted in the usual regular sense of the term. Mary, your wife, was formally and legally adopted, but the others came to us in a much more informal manner. Jacko was an orphan and was handed over to us by an old grandmother. She was killed in the blitz and he stayed with us. It was as simple as that. Micky was illegitimate. His mother was only interested in men. She wanted 100 down and got it. We've never known what happened to Tina's mother. She never wrote to the child, she never claimed her after the war, and it was quite impossible to trace her."
"And Hester?"
"Hester was illegitimate too. Her mother was a young Irish hospital nurse. She married an American G.I. shortly after Hester came to us. She begged us to keep the child. She did not propose to tell her husband anything about its birth. She went to the States with her husband at the end of the war and we've never heard any more from her."
"All tragic histories in a way," said Philip. "All poor unwanted little devils."
"Yes," said Leo. "That's what made Rachel feel so passionately about them all. She was determined to make them feel wanted, to give them a real home, be a real mother to them."
"It was a fine thing to do," said Philip.
"Only - only it can never work out exactly as she hoped it might," said Leo. "It was an article of faith with her that the blood tie didn't matter. But the blood tie does matter, you know. There is usually something in one's own children, some kink of temperament, some way of feeling that you recognise and can understand without having to put into words. You haven't got that tie with children you adopt. One has no instinctive knowledge of what goes on in their minds. You judge them, of course, by yourself, by your own thoughts and feelings, but it's wise to recognise that those thoughts and feelings may be very widely divergent from theirs."
"You understood that, I suppose, all along," said Philip.
"I warned Rachel about it," said Leo, "but of course she didn't believe it. Didn't want to believe it. She wanted them to be her own children."
"Tina's always the dark horse, to my mind," said Philip. "Perhaps it's the half of her that isn't white. Who was the father, do you know?"
"He was a seaman of some kind, I believe. Possibly a Lascar. The mother," added Leo dryly, "was unable to say."
"One doesn't know how she reacts to things, or what she thinks about. She says so little." Philip paused, and then shot out a question: "What does she know about this business that she isn't telling?"
He saw Leo Argyle's hand, that had been turning over papers, stop. There was a moment's pause, and then Leo said: "Why should you think she isn't telling everything she knows?"
"Come now, sir, it's pretty obvious, isn't it?"
"It's not obvious to me," said Leo.
She knows something," said Philip. "Something damaging, do you think, about some particular person?"
"I think, Philip, if you'll forgive me for saying so, that it is rather unwise to speculate about these things. One can easily imagine so much."
"Are you warning me off, sir?" "Is it really your business, Philip?" "Meaning I'm not a policeman?"
"Yes, that's what I meant. Police have to do their duty. They have to enquire into things."
"And you don't want to enquire into them?" "Perhaps," said Leo, "I'm afraid of what I should find."
Philip's hand tightened excitedly in his chair. He said softly: "Perhaps you know who did it. Do you, sir?"
"No."
The abruptness and vigour of Leo's reply startled Philip.
"No," said Leo, bringing his hand down on the desk. He was suddenly no longer the frail, attenuated, withdrawn personality that Philip knew so well. "I don't know who did it! D'you hear? I don't know. I haven't the least idea. I don't -1 don't want to know."
Chapter 17
"And what are you doing, Hester, my love?" asked Philip.
In his wheeled-chair he was propelling himself along the passage. Hester was leaning out of the window half-way along it. She started and drew her head in.
"Oh, it's you," she said.
"Are you observing the universe, or considering suicide?" asked Philip.
She looked at him defiantly.
"What makes you say a thing like that?"
"Obviously it was in your mind," said Philip. "But, frankly, Hester, if you are contemplating such a step, that window is no good. The drop's not deep enough. Think how unpleasant it would be for you with a broken arm and a broken leg, say, instead of the merciful oblivion you are craving?"
"Micky used to climb down the magnolia tree from this window. It was his secret way in and out. Mother never knew."
"The things parents never know! One could write a book about it. But if it's suicide you are contemplating, Hester, just by the summer-house would be a better place to jump from."
"Where it juts out over the river? Yes, one would be dashed on the rocks below?
"The trouble with you, Hester, is that you're so melodramatic in your imaginings. Most people are quite satisfied with arranging themselves tidily in the gas oven or measuring themselves out an enormous number of sleeping pills."
"I'm glad you're here," said Hester unexpectedly. "You don't mind talking about things, do you?"
"Well, actually, I haven't much else to do nowadays, said Philip. "Come into my room and we'll do some more talking." As she hesitated, he went on: "Mary's downstairs, gone to prepare me some delicious little morning mess with her own fair hands."
"Mary wouldn't understand," said Hester.
"No," Philip agreed, "Mary wouldn't understand in the least."
Philip propelled himself along and Hester walked beside him. She opened the door of the sitting-room and he wheeled himself in. Hester followed.
"But you understand," said Hester. "Why?"
"Well, there's a time, you know, when one thinks about such things... When this business first happened to me, for instance, and I knew that I might be a cripple for life..."
"Yes," said Hester, "that must have been terrible. Terrible. And you were a pilot, too, weren't you? You flew."
"Up above the world so high, like a tea-tray in the sky," agreed Philip.
"I'm terribly sorry," said Hester. "I am really. I ought to have thought about it more, and been more sympathetic!"
"Thank God you weren't," said Philip. "But anyway, that phase is over now. One gets used to anything, you know. That's something, Hester, that you don't appreciate at the moment. But you'll come to it. Unless you do something very rash and very silly first. Now come on, tell me all about it. What's the trouble? I suppose you've had a row with your boy friend, the solemn young doctor. Is that it?"
"It wasn't a row," said Hester. "It was much worse than a row."
"It will come right," said Philip.
"No, it won't," said Hester. "It can't - ever."
"You're so extravagant in your terms. Everything's black and white to you, isn't it, Hester? No half-tones."
"I can't help being like that," said Hester. "I've always been like it. Everything I thought I could do or wanted to do has always gone wrong. I wanted to have a life of my own, to be someone, to do something. It was all no good. I was no good at anything. I've often thought of killing myself. Ever since I was fourteen."
Philip watched her with interest. He said in a quiet, matter-of-fact voice: "Of course people do kill themselves a good deal, between fourteen and nineteen. It's an age in life when things are very much out of proportion. Schoolboys kill themselves because they don't think they can pass examinations and girls kill themselves because their mothers won't let them go to the pictures with unsuitable boy friends. It's a kind of period where everything appears to be in glorious Technicolor. Joy or despair. Gloom or unparalleled happiness. One snaps out of it. The trouble with you is, Hester, it's taken you longer to snap out of it than most people."
"Mother was always right," said Hester. "All the things she wouldn't let me do and I wanted to do. She was right about them and I was wrong. I couldn't bear it, I simply couldn't bear it! So I thought I'd got to be brave. I'd got to go off on my own. I'd got to test myself. And it all went wrong. I wasn't any good at acting."
